Gordon, Charles F. 1943-

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GORDON, Charles F. 1943-

(OyamO)

PERSONAL: Born September 7, 1943, in Elyria, OH; son of Earnest (a steelworker) and Bennie (a homemaker). Education: Attended Miami University (Oxford, OH), New York University, Brooklyn College, and Harlem Youth Speaks/First Light Video Institute; College of New Rochelle, B.A., 1979; Yale University School of Drama, M.F.A., 1981.

ADDRESSES: Office—University of Michigan, Theatre and Drama Department, 2550 Frieze Building, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285. Agent—c/o Berman, Boals and Flynn, Inc., 208 West 30th Street, Suite 401, New York, NY 10001. E-mail—oyamo@umich.edu.

CAREER: Writer, dramatist. New Lafayette Theatre, New York, NY, assistant technical director, 1967-69; American Place Theatre, New York, NY, assistant stage manger, 1970; Black Magicians theatre company, New York, NY, founder, 1970; Negro Ensemble Company, New York, NY, master electrician, 1971; Afro-American Cultural Center, Buffalo, NY, creative writing teacher, 1972; Street Theatre, Eastern Connecticut Correctional Institute, Napanoch, NY, creative writing teacher, 1975-76; Afro-American Cultural Center, New Haven, CT, creative writing teacher, 1978; College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY, creative writing teacher, 1979-82; Emory University, Atlanta, GA, writer-in-residence, 1982-83; Playwrights Center, Minneapolis, MN, writer-in-residence, 1984; Playwrights Workshop, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, visiting lecturer, 1986-87; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, adjunct associate professor of playwriting, 1989-90, associate professor, 1990—. Military service: U.S. Naval Reserve, 1966; honorable discharge.

MEMBER: PEN, Dramatists Guild, New Dramatists, Writers' Guild of America East.

AWARDS, HONORS: National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, 1985, 1992; Rockefeller grant, 1972, 1983; Guggenheim fellowship, 1973, McKnight fellowship, 1984; New York State Council on the Arts fellowship, 1972, 1975, 1982, 1985; Ohio Arts Council award, 1979; Yale University School of Drama Molly Kazan award, 1980.

WRITINGS:

plays; under name oyamo

Chumpanzees, produced in New York, NY, 1970.

The Negroes (produced in New York, NY, 1970), published in Black Troupe, 1970.

Outta Site (produced in New York, NY, 1970), published in Black Troupe, 1970.

The Thieves, produced in Seattle, WA, 1970.

Willie Bignigga (produced in New York, NY, 1970), published in Dramatika, 1970.

The Last Party, produced in New York, NY, 1970.

(And director) The Lovers, produced in New York, NY, 1971.

The Advantage of Dope, produced in Buffalo, NY, 1971.

His First Step in The Corner (produced in New York, NY, 1972), published in New LaFayette Theatre Presents, edited by Ed Bullins, Grove Press (New York, NY), 1974.

The Breakout (produced in Waterford, CT, 1972; produced in New York, NY, 1975), published in Black Drama: An Anthology, edited by Woodie King and Ron Milner, 1972, reprinted, 1995.

The Juice Problem, produced in Waterford, CT, 1974.

Crazy Niggas, produced in Napanoch, NY, 1975.

A Star Is Born Again (for children), produced in New York, NY, 1978.

Mary Goldstein and the Author (produced in New York, NY, 1979), Third World Press (Chicago, IL), 1989.

The Place of the Spirit Dance, produced in New Haven, CT, 1980.

The Resurrection of Lady Lester (produced in New Haven, CT, then New York, NY, 1981), published as The Resurrection of Lady Lester: A Poetic Mood Song Based on the Legend of Lester Young, Theatre Communications Group (New York, NY), 1981.

Distraughter and the Great Panda Scanda (musical), produced in Atlanta, GA, 1983.

Old Black Joe, produced in San Francisco, CA 1984.

Every Moment, produced in San Francisco, CA 1986.

The Temple of Youth (for children), produced in New York, NY, 1987.

Fried Chicken and Invisibility, produced in New York, NY, 1988.

Singing Joy, produced in New York, NY, 1988.

An Evening of Living Colors, music by Olu Dara, produced in Trenton, NJ, 1988; produced in New York, NY, 1989.

The Stalwarts, produced in New York, NY, 1988.

Return of the Been-To, produced in New York, NY, 1988.

Let Me Live, produced in New York, NY, 1991.

(Adaptor) One-Third of a Nation, produced in Fairfax, VA, 1991.

Famous Orpheus, produced in New Brunswick, NJ, 1991.

Angels in the Mens' Room, produced in New York, NY, 1992.

Sanctuary (sketches), produced in New York, NY, 1992.

I Am a Man (produced in Washington, DC, 1995), published as I Am a Man: Powa tad a Peepas, Applause Books (New York, NY), 1995.

In Living Colors, produced in Fairfax, VA, 1992.

Dancing on the Brink, produced in East Palo Alto, CA, 1995.

(Adaptor) Pink and Say, produced in Seattle, WA, 1996.

The White Black Man (Mundele Ndombe), produced in Waterford, CT, 1998.

(Adaptor) Boundless Grace, produced in Minneapolis, MN, 1998.

Liyanja, produced in Ann Arbor, MI, 1998.

Kickin Summit in Free Market, produced in New York, NY, 2001.

Harry and the Streetbeat, produced in Philadelphia, PA, 2001.

other; under name oyamo

The Star That Could Not Play, Oyamo Ujamaa (New York, NY), 1974.

Hillybilly Liberation: A Grossly Understated Prayer of the Theatrical Spectacles, Social Positions, and Poetry, OyamO Ujamaa (New York, NY), 1976.

SIDELIGHTS: The playwright known as OyamO was born Charles F. Gordon on September 7, 1943, in Elyria, Ohio, to Earnest and Bennie Gordon. When Earnest shipped out to fight in World War II, OyamO's mother moved the family to Lorain, Ohio in order to be nearer to her family. OyamO was raised in Lorain, where he began to write stories, poems, and plays, as well as articles for the school newspaper and letters to the editor of the local paper. He worked briefly after graduation in order to earn money for college, then enrolled at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After two and a half years, he dropped out, disappointed in the curriculum and what he felt was a very conservative atmosphere.

OyamO joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and began to get involved in political activism. His interests led him to New York City in search of a broader, more multiracial audience for his message. It was in New York that he acquired his pseudonym when someone misread the front of his "Miami University of Ohio" shirt, and OyamO adopted the resulting word. He then proceeded to join acting workshops at the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, interested in improving upon his playwriting skills through an understanding of the actors point of view.

OyamO's writing has always been his main focus, and he has written approximately one play each year since the 1960s, though not all of them have been produced. He shies away from writing in a realistic style, instead aiming to evoke an emotional impact on this audience through language, imagery, and myth. His plays are less about telling a story from beginning to end and more about leaving the viewer with an experience.

The Resurrection of Lady Lester, which OyamO has referred to as a "poetic mood song," takes its inspiration from the life of saxophonist Lester Young. OyamO avoids a linear structure, instead moving from scene to scene in no obvious order as if the memories were streaming from Lesters consciousness. He places particular emphasis on the musicians relationship with singer Billie Holiday, making the play a celebration of Youngs life and music.

Famous Orpheus is a retelling of the Greek myth, but strongly influenced by the film, Black Narcissus. OyamO's version of the story sets Orpheus on a fictional Caribbean island where he is the village singer, responsible for directing the festival rehearsals for the upcoming Carnival. Eurydice is a farm girl who has come to visit her uncle. When Orpheus falls for Eurydice, his fiancée, Mariella, becomes enraged with jealousy. A reviewer for Variety, referring to a performance in Rochester, New York, commented that "the idea could be seriously hokey, but playwright OyamO, director Mark Cuddy, and [Garth] Fagan have infused the show with a solid integrity and even a kind of sweet innocence."

I Am a Man is set during the tumultuous year of 1968, and recounts the story of Memphis strike-leader, T. O. Jones. The title is taken from the placards some of the workers used during the strike, and as Don Shirley remarked in a review for the Los Angeles Times, "the slogan has a double meaning—a heroic interpretation in which Jones and the garbage collectors who support him declare their humanity for all its worth, and a more subtle slant in which playwright OyamO reminds us that to err is human, too." Lloyd Rose of the Washington Post called the play "mercilessly intelligent drama," and Chicago Tribune critic Sid Smith wrote that "instead of a polemic steeped in hindsight, much of the time OyamO delivers sardonic comedy. He is fascinated by ordinariness and how, even in the midst of revolution, most remain helplessly on the periphery."

Let Me Live takes the audience inside a cell at Georgias Fulton Tower Jail in 1932, where OyamO explores the plight of African-American criminals inside the justice system, focusing on the true story of Angelo Herndon, an activist who suddenly found himself incarcerated with inmates who were hardened by the system. Chris Jones, in a review for Variety, called OyamO's work "startling and abrasive," stating "there are quieter moments of real poignancy here…. but Let Me Live is mainly a collection of fights, beatings, cursings and struggles for the mind to overpower brute force." He concludes that "OyamO writes with a lyrical sensibility."

OyamO told CA: "A fifth grade teacher realized and pointed out to me that I liked to write. A variety of authors of drama, fiction, poetry and essays influenced me to varying degrees at various times: Ralph Ellison, Immamu Baraka, Ed Bullins, William Shakespeare, James Baldwin, Fyodor Dostoyevski, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Arthur Miller, W. E. B. DuBois, Aristophanes, Miguel Pinero, Langston Hughes, Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozoke Shange, Lillian Hellman, Countee Cullen, Paul Laurence Dunbar, etc. My process is to imagine and then write in the early morning hours, drinking honey sweetened, lemon-infused tea with a very very light breakfast of bread and fruit, maybe a boiled egg.

"My favorite play is the next one I write. I never knew that the art world was as crassly political as any other and just about as racist in a gentle way, sometimes in an unconscious way.

"I hope my plays, the good ones and the bad ones, can contribute to improving the human condition, to warning us what we face if we humans don't face up to and overcome our shortcomings (particularly those that divide us and foster vicious hostility among us), to speak truth to the people as opposed to power—which already knows the truth and seeks to forestall it, to obfuscate it, to deform it and bend it to serving its narrow interests."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Contemporary Dramatists, sixth edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

periodicals

Backstage, June 8, 1990, Victor Gluck, "Ensemble Marathon Evening B," review of The Stalwarts, p. 60.

Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1994, Sid Smith, "Bleak Comedy Uproots 'I Am a Man,'" p. 20; April 19, 1998, Chris Jones, "A Tragedy: Author of a New Play about Prison Life Slams the U.S. Judicial System," p. 8.

Los Angeles Times, February 29, 1996, Don Shirley, "'Man' Offers a Striking Look at '60s Grass-Roots Leader," p. F5; April 9, 1996, Janice Arkatov, "Drawing Lessons from a Troubled Time in Memphis," p. 1.

New Republic, July 19, 1993, Robert Brustein, review of I Am a Man, p. 29.

New York Times, June 9, 2001, Anita Gates, "A Good Job Is Hard to Find, Indeed," p. B12.

Nieman Reports, fall, 1992, "The Theater—Shifting Public," p. 39.

Variety, May 4, 1998, Chris Jones, review of Let Me Live, p. 95; June 29, 1998, review of Famous Orpheus, p. 50.

Village Voice, May 25, 1993, Marc Robinson, "Memphis Blues," pp. 89, 92.

Washington Post, December 3, 1992, Sarah Kaufman, "Ballad of the Gullahs," review of In Living Colors, p. D11; March 10, 1995, Lloyd Rose, "'I Am a Man:' A Strike for Justice," p. C10.